1. Field of the Invention
This invention related to devices for calling wild turkeys for hunting, photographing, and viewing using a hand held device for generating a tone or sound which mimics that of a wild turkey. The present invention relates to a turkey call which provides a large number of features not found in present turkey calls.
2. Brief Description of the Related Art
Some turkey calls cannot produce a variety of purrs, clucks, tree yelps, and calls of the wild turkey. Others cannot generate both louder and softer tones needed for use when the turkey is further or nearer to the user.
For centuries, wild turkeys have been hunted in North America. While hunting turkeys is an exciting sport, wild turkeys are very difficult to draw in. Turkeys are easily alarmed, so it is not practical to come up to turkeys because any noise produced will alarm the turkeys and they will flee the area. Typically, wild turkeys are hunted by attracting turkeys to the hunter with a call.
Turkeys have voices which vary according to gender and age. Females tend to have higher pitched voices than males and juveniles have higher pitched sounds than adults with deeper more coarse tones.
Experienced hunters and nature lovers demand a call that can imitate unique turkey language. This invention defines a turkey call that meets this requirement.
Various kinds of turkey calls are now in existence, some are bulky and difficult to use with large sounding boards. Some require complicated movements of a striker. The purpose of this invention is to create an easy to use, more compact, less fragile and better sounding turkey call.
This invention is directed to a device for mimicking turkey sounds which includes a thin piece of slate or slate-like material (herein called xe2x80x9cslatexe2x80x9d), a rectangular box sounding chamber, and baffles to magnify the sound that is produced when a striker is rubbed on the slate.
The sound box is constructed of flat material such as wood including sides and bottom. Interior baffles including holes are attached to the bottom of the box to resonate sound waves. The thin slate is attached to the underside of the top of the sound chamber and is vibrated as the striker is scratched on a surface of the slate. The top of the sound chamber has holes that allow sound to resonant out. The baffles break the resonant sound chamber into several sections which produce a wide range of sound frequencies necessary to imitate the sounds of wild turkeys.
The design of the sound box is such that a user needs only to draw a striker down on the sounding plate, without the necessity of sideways or other movement of the striker, making the design easy to use.
The turkey call incorporates a sound box in which slate vibrates air through a sound box which has a series of baffles, with the sound coming out of the top of the box, similar to the sound box of a violin. The baffles are constructed of thin material (e.g. wood) attached to the bottom and top of the box.
The call of the invention is designed to produce a resonance which better imitates the sound of a wild turkey""s call. The heart of the call is a hollow box with a number of holes passing through a top and into the hollow interior chamber. The holes surround a modest sized slate sounding board which is centered on the top of the box.
The slate sounding board is supported inside the interior chamber of the box by the perforated baffles. The size and position of the slate supporting baffles protects the slate and call from casual damage during field usage. The sound produced by the striker being drawn over the slate sounding board passes into the hollow chamber of the box directly below the striker and through the perforated supporting baffles to the adjacent chambers. This construction produces a wide resonance and a variable sound imitative of a wild turkey""s call.